Sensex plunges 436 points in early trade

The stock market on Thursday nosedived by 436 points in early trade on a major sell-off by funds in heavy-weight stocks led by banking and realty sectors after the Reserve Bank hiked the repo rate by a quarter percentage.

The Bombay Stock Exchange benchmark index, Sensex, which had gained 296.07 points on Wednesday, lost 436.02 points to 14,749.30 points in the first five minutes of trade.

Marketmen said reports of RBI hiking the repo rate, the rate at which banks borrow from the central bank, by 0.25 per cent to 8 per cent from 7.75 per cent with immediate effect mainly dampened trading sentiments.

They said reports of weakening trends in global markets and rising crude oil prices too impacted the trend.

In the US, Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged 1.68 per cent while the tech-heavy Nasdaq composite fell 2.24 per cent.

Asian markets were also in negative zone. Singapore shares were trading about 3.2 per cent down, Hong Kong's Hang Seng down 2.45 per cent while Japan's Nikkei-225 index fell 1.87 per cent in early trade.

On the BSE, Bankex Index fell by 3.72 per cent to 6,757.65 points led by stocks of SBI down 3.31 per cent, Bank of India by 4.76 per cent, HDFC Bank 4.18 per cent, ICICI Bank 3.97 per cent and Kotak Bank by 5.43 per cent.

In the realty sector, DLF Ltd fell 6.06 per cent, HDFC Ltd 6.86 per cent, Ansal Infrastructure by 4.17 per cent, Unitech by 4.83 and Parsvnath by 3.86 per cent.